Gardening

We were signed up to go to yoga this morning--strong yoga for mama while the four littles play in the playroom. Instead the two littlest are screaming in their cribs and the Bigs are drinking milk and reading books for quiet time.

The kitchen is a mess--bananas all over the floor, dishwasher half-loaded, sink full.

The dining room table is buried in mostly folded laundry.

The living room rug desperately needs to be vacuumed.

The giant lawn needs to be mowed.

Weeds need to be pulled.

An avocado plant waits to be transferred from pot to earth.

There is an election today...for a state senator I think?

I don't know how much time I have but it won't be much. The Bigs rarely nap at this time anymore.

Last summer the six of us went to a picnic in San Francisco, held in honor of some friends who were visiting from New York. The little girls had only been out of the hospital for a week or so--teeny, tiny babies snuggled into Ergos. Lily and Cyrus were a year old, plus almost two months. They were barefoot because, though I had checked the weather, we were far enough west for the air to be five or ten degrees colder than it probably was downtown. Plus they weren't walking yet so they never wore shoes, and rarely socks since baby socks are annoying and always fall off.

The picnic was at Rossi Park on Arguello Boulevard. I'd played there as a kid but the playground has been completely redone since then. The food was delicious and there were many sets of willing hands to hold babies. I sat on the edge of the playground, my big kids crawling around my legs and pulling themselves up on the stroller or the bench. They were as big as they'd ever been, just as they are today.

I hugged my beautiful friend--she radiates light and joy and is so stunning you almost have to sit down when she smiles at you. Her two kids were there--an older girl a few months past two, a younger boy the same age as my Bigs. We shared stories of motherhood and I watched, mesmerized, as her big girl climbed to the very tops of slides and roared down them. She owned that playground. I could not comprehend, even as it was acted out before my eyes, the difference between one and two. Years old, not children.

My big kids will be two in a few weeks and they are totally different creatures than they were a month ago, let alone a year ago. Having children. . .it is watching life. The actual, mysterious, scientific, magical, sacred, biological explosion of cells that slowly and quickly happens before your eyes. It takes my breath away.

When I was younger I used to wonder what it would feel like to be old. Would I look in the mirror one day and see white hair and wrinkles and be taken aback? Would it be sudden and surprising? Now I know that I am my same self, folded into more years of experience. I am the same and different. My children are the same and different. If I squint I can see the tiny babies they were not so very long ago. Even as their backs are lean, muscular plains and their legs are the legs of kids, not babies. They are everywhere on a playground. Two weeks ago the big kids climbed a mountain of a staircase and whizzed down a gigantic slide--one that was mostly populated by eight and nine year olds. They looked minute in comparison, yet they climbed up and rode down again and again.

This is the hardest thing I have ever done and I have done many hard things. Taking care of these four small people is physically and emotionally draining. When all four are crying my mind goes blank, with buzzing edges--make it stop omg no more crying what do you need gah! They spill anything that can possibly be spilled, touch everything in existence with sticky hands, step on each other, fight over toys, dribble spit-up in trails around a room. Loading them all up into the van is enough to make you think you deserve a medal and the rest of the day off. Watching them grow? Seeing the seeds of who they are blossom and stretch out strong little tendrils into the world around them? Getting this front row seat? So worth it.

I think.

Yes, worth it.